Hurricane Camille


Camille as a powerful Category 5 hurricane
in the Gulf of Mexico, on August 16

Meteorological history
Formed: August 14, 1969
Dissipated: August 22, 1969
Category 5 hurricane
Overall effects
Fatalities: 259 total
Damage: $1.42 billion (1969 USD)

Hurricane Camille was the second most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the United States (behind the 1935 Labor Day hurricane) and is one of just four Category 5 hurricanes to make landfall in the U.S.

The most intense storm of the 1969 Atlantic hurricane season, Camille originated as a tropical depression on August 14, south of Cuba, from a long-tracked tropical wave. Located in a favorable environment for strengthening, the storm quickly intensified into a Category 2 hurricane before striking the western part of Cuba on August 15. Emerging into the Gulf of Mexico, Camille underwent another period of rapid intensification and became a Category 5 hurricane the next day as it moved northward towards Louisiana and Mississippi. Despite weakening slightly on August 17, the hurricane quickly re-intensified back into a Category 5 hurricane before it made landfall a half hour before midnight in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. At peak intensity, the hurricane had peak 1-minute sustained winds of 175 miles per hour (282 km/h) and a minimum pressure of 900 mbar (26.58 inHg), the second-lowest pressure recorded for a U.S. landfall behind the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. As Camille pushed inland, it quickly weakened and was a tropical depression by the time it was over the Ohio Valley. Once it emerged offshore, Camille was able to restrengthen to a strong tropical storm before becoming extratropical on August 22. Camille was absorbed by a frontal storm over the North Atlantic later that day.

Camille caused tremendous damage in its wake and produced a peak official storm surge of 24 feet (7.3 m). It flattened nearly everything along the Mississippi coast and caused additional flooding and deaths inland while crossing the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. In the U.S., Camille killed more than 259 people and caused $1.42 billion in damages (equivalent to $11.3 billion in 2022).

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Map plotting the track and intensity of the storm, according to the Saffir–Simpson scale

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Camille Storm Total Rainfall

Camille caused moderate rainfall in Tennessee and Kentucky of between 3 and 5 inches (130 mm), helping to relieve a drought in the area, yet in West Virginia, there was flash flooding which destroyed 36 houses and 12 trailers, a total of three quarters of a million dollars in damage.

Virginia

Because the hurricane was expected to quickly dissipate over land, few were prepared for the flash flooding. Arriving in Virginia on the evening of August 19, Camille was no longer a hurricane, but it carried high amounts of moisture and contained sufficient strength and low pressure to pull in additional moisture.

A widespread area of western and central Virginia received over 8 inches (200 mm) of rain from Camille's remains, leading to significant flooding across the state. A total of 153 people lost their lives from blunt trauma sustained during mountain slides, related to the flash flooding, not drowning. More than 123 of these deaths, including 21 members of one family, the Huffmans, were in Nelson County. Debris avalanches occurred on hillsides with a slope greater than 35 percent. In Nelson County, the number of deaths amounted to over one percent of the county's population. The worst of the damage was reported in Massies Mill, Woods Mill, Roseland, Bryant, Tyro, Montebello, Lovingston, Norwood, Rockfish, and along the Davis and Muddy creeks. The James and Tye rivers crested well above flood stage in many areas, including a record high of 41.3 feet (12.6 m) at Columbia, Virginia. Hurricane Camille caused more than $140 million of damage (1969 dollars) in Virginia. Camille was considered one of the worst natural disasters in central Virginia's recorded history.

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Bright Enlightenment
Published on Mar 28, 2013

HURRICANE CAMILLE - A Lady Called Camille HURRICANE CAMILLE - "A Lady Called Camille" | FULL Documentary
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- The video documents the devastation caused by Hurricane Camille and the suffering caused thousands of people. It shows that while hundreds of lives were lost to the hurricane, thousands were saved due to emergency plans, trained rescue teams, and help from the forces of government.